Sentinel
by Nona Mousy
Summary: He doesn't remember a time when he was a person.


**Sentinel**

**Rating: R**

**Summary:** He doesn't remember a time when he was a person.

* * *

The night is curiously still around him. The quiet makes him edgy... makes him want to move... makes him itch. A calm night is a curse to him. It gives him time to think, time to consider just what he's doing sitting in the dark watching over a hidden room with hidden people that mean little to him and less to a world that doesn't know of their existence. 

He doesn't like thinking too much... examining motives or memories that are never as well formed as he'd like anymore. His mind is as warped as the rest of him these days. It does not function correctly... does not react in a way that could be called human anymore.

He does not recall a time when that was not the case, though abstractly he knows there was a day many many days ago when he had a name and a past... a life. When he was a person. There was a time when his mind did not think in so many directions at once. There was probably a place he called home.

Its all speculative of course, and there is no guarantee his lost time was anything more than more days like the ones he lives now. He is not sure how old he is, when or where he was born. Sometimes he thinks he was spawned from the depths of some kind of Christian hell... but its a fanciful notion and he knows the truth is probably very dull and uninspired.

He wonders sometimes if his past is lost in his own existence. He is not a creature that should be able to exist. His cells are wrong, and to survive through death he has had to encode what he thinks of as himself within his genes. Memories encoded in a cellular structure that was not designed to carry such things. He is not sure, but a scientist he once killed had speculated there would be a limit to such things.

In his opinion it was a poor choice of last thoughts on the man's part.

He is not sure where his older memories have gone, but he cannot remember a time when he remembered beyond the labs and the experiments and the training. He is not sure if he is upset to have lost such a thing.

It is hard to miss something you do not remember.

* * *

The girl sneaks out of the apartment a little after two in the morning. Its not the first time she's done so and it probably won't be the last. 

She's important, so he follows her. The air is cool and clear, and he stays to the rooftops to avoid her detection. She follows a familiar path through abandoned alleys and dark shadows. There's no destination this evening, just a need to move.

Its a sentiment he sympathises with.

Eventually, she pauses at a small park that looks out over an older part of the city and finds a rusted swing to sit on. He contemplates the small rocking motion she settles into as he relaxes into a large tree near the entrance to wait.

She is a pretty thing. Petite and delicate, with huge soulful eyes that stare out forlornly at the world that has betrayed her. Her skin is too pale now... lack of sunshine these past months he suspects. It gives her a sort of ethereal glow in the faint moonlight. Her skin is soft, he recalls, soft and fragile. Her shell would be easy to damage, though her mind has proven more resilient.

He thinks he understands what his prey finds so appealing about her.

She sits for a long time on the abandoned swing, just staring blindly out at the city that she isn't really a part of anymore. He observes eventually that too much time is passing. She risks being found. The tree he is in rustles gently. Just enough to catch her attention. A moment later she is up again and moving, her movements wary now.

He follows her most of the way back, keeping just close enough he can tell there is no one around to confront her at her return.

* * *

He stalks the young officer for most of the day before he decides to take him. There's not much to do during the day after all and he doesn't sleep anymore. 

The officer isn't closely tied to Chronos and though he is one of their creations he is not a particularly interesting one. There will not be any great benefit in destroying the man, but he's bored and nothing more interesting has presented itself.

He is quiet in his approach, falling into step discreetly behind the man as he wanders casually through a crowded shopping district. Eventually the officer wanders into a less populated area. He slows until the man is further ahead... close enough to hear, far enough not to see him move. It is simple to duck into the poorly lit alley, knocking over a couple of trashcans before bleeding back into the shadows. Not one to disappoint, the officer wanders in after him to investigate.

He wonders, as he gently wraps a hand around the mans throat, if someday one of his victims will be smart enough not to wander so casually into his grasp.

The officer tries to struggle, tries to scream... but he's cut off the man's airway and the only sound that comes out of the panicked lips is a soft strangled whistle. He grins to himself as he feels his flesh melt against the other man's.

Its not quite what he would call a pleasant sensation, the feeling of his cells detaching to feed on the now transforming body clutched in his arms, but he enjoys it anyway... enjoys the release of adrenaline and endorphins in the flesh he's consuming... enjoys as they flood back into his own... enjoys the pins and needles sensations that results as the cells of the other burst and reform under the molecular onslaught.

All too soon its over, and he is stretching to settle his new skin within his old. For a moment in his mind he is both himself and the man he has just taken. He pauses then to review, to catalog memories and thoughts that are not his own. Then he releases the awareness and it melts into the background of his self that holds the hundreds of other beings he's amalgamated.

He finds he was right. The officer was not deep enough in to know much.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Aptom during the time between the destruction of the Relic and the birth of the Gigantic takes a curious position guarding the Segawas and the Onumas. Considering there's no way to know if the guyvers have survived at that point and the fact that the timeframe spans something like 6-8months I am really curious about his motivations. 

I always find his character fascinating... He's come such a long way since his introduction as a mildly psychotic loose canon, defying Chronos for revenge. His past hasn't been explored much to date, which is a shame in my opinion. I also think its interesting to consider how he's put together pysiologically. He's got a brain still, but how do you retain memory or cognizant functions when your head's been blown off? What puts the information back into your head once its regenerated?

On writing this: I did this in a sort of quasi-stream-of-concience in one sitting and then edited it to be more cohesive. Its not intended as a series, just a collection of shorts that I may or may not add on to from time to time.


End file.
